rsquo

35% of Americans aged 16 and older now own a tablet, says the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, citing results from a survey [pdf] conducted between July and September. While that figure represents a large increase from 25% in November of last year, it’s only a marginal increase from a May Pew study, in which it found 34% of adults aged 18 and over to own a tablet. As with the previous study, this latest research covers the demographics of tablet owners, but with a couple of extra pieces of data.

Advertisement

Pew says that its latest survey contained enough English-speaking Asian-American respondents to allow them to be included as a separate, statistically-significant sample. And the results are certainly interesting: 50% of Asian-Americans aged 16 and over reported owning a tablet, far above the corresponding rates for Hispanics (37%), whites (35%), and blacks (29%).

Given that this latest survey looked at Americans aged 16 and up, rather than the prior survey’s 18+ range, it also contains some data concerning smartphone ownership among 16-17-year-olds. This group also claims high rates of tablet ownership: at 46% penetration, it’s above all other age groups in the study, with the 30-49 demo next (44%), followed by the 18-29 (37%), 50-64 (31%) and 65+ (18%) groups.

Unsurprisingly given the earlier research, there remains a large disparity in tablet ownership when sorting by education attainment and household income. Looking first at education, the survey reveals that 21% of respondents with no high school diploma own a tablet, with that figure rising all the way to 49% among those with a college degree. As for household income (HHI) level, adoption is at 22% for those with less than $30,000 per year, climbing to 65% among those with H! HI of at ! least $150k.

The smartphone industry is at an interesting point in time. In 2007, Apple’s iPhone practically invented — or re-invented, if you will — the current smartphone age with a full capacitive touchscreen and support for mobile apps. GoogleAndroid followed in 2008 and although it was slow to catch up, is relatively on par with iOS in terms of usability and app support.

These incumbents — Apple and Google’s Android partners — account for 89.9 percent of smartphone sales as of the third quarter of 2012, per IDC. Some alternative platforms, such as Palm’s webOS and Nokia’s Maemo software, entered the market only to disappointingly disappear: webOS is now an open-source platform and Maemo became MeeGo, which Nokia abandoned when it chose to use Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Windows Phone has been around for two years but has relatively little in the way of sales to show for it.

The upshot of Krugman’s argument is this: income inequality has been increasing for years in the United States, but one of the major drivers that no one talks about is the increasing use of robotics in manufacturing and other industries to do jobs traditionally done by human laborers.

One conclusion Krugman reaches is that even the highly-paid, highly-skilled workers who have dominated the share of income growth in the U.S. over the past several years will be increasingly affected going forward by the rise of the machines:

About the robots: there’s no question that in some high-profile industries, technology is displacing workers of all, or almost all, kinds. For example, one of the reasons some high-technology manufacturing has lately been moving back to the United States is that these days the most valuable piece of a computer, the motherboard, is basically made by robots, so cheap Asian labor is no longer a reason to produce them abroad.

In a recent book, “Race Against the Machine,” M.I.T.’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue that similar stories are playing out in many fields, including services like translation and legal research. What’s striking about their examples is that many of the jobs being displaced are high-skill and high-wage; the downside of technology isn’t limited to menial workers.

If this is the wave of the future, it makes nonsense of just about all the conventional wisdom on reducing inequality. Better education won’t do much to reduce inequality if the big rewards simply go to those with the most assets. Creating an “opportunity society”, or whatever it is the likes of Paul Ryan etc. are selling this week, won’t do much if the most important asset you can have in life is, well, lots of assets inherited from your parents. And so on.

I think our eyes have been averted from the capital/labor dimension of inequality, for several reasons. It didn’t seem crucial back in the 1990s, and not enough people (me included!) have looked up to notice that things have changed. It has echoes of old-fashioned Marxism — which shouldn’t be a reason to ignore facts, but too often is. And it has really uncomfortable implications.!

Finally, Krugman offers a few alternative explanations for the increasing shift of income distribution toward capital and away from labor that don’t feature robots so prominently. One is the idea that monopoly power – made more ubiquitous by growing business concentration in the United States which allows big producers to control prices more effectively – may be a bigger culprit.

Krugman thus concludes by writing that “the starting point is to realize that there’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear, but it’s potentially really important.”

In a small but fundamental change to Wikipedia, a tool which protects articles from malicious vandalism while simultaneously permitting good-faith edits has gone live on the English Wikipedia.

When a page under ‘pending changes’ protection is edited by a new user or a user without an account, the edit does not go live until it has been reviewed by a more experienced editor.

Edits made to Wikipedia articles are normally visible immediately.

The new tool is in contrast to the typical means of page protection on the online encyclopaedia, which, in the case of a flurry of vandalism to an article, completely locks it from being edited at all by new users.

Pending changes is already used on the second largest Wikimedia Foundation project, the German Wikipedia, but unlike the English one, on which pending changes can be assigned to and removed from pages that are frequently subjected to unconstructive edits, it’s applied to all articles by default.

This is a significant and long-awaited development. Wikipedia cannot remain the resource that it is if its four million-plus articles – the product of enormous amounts of volunteer time – are fair game.

At last, the burden for dealing with problematic edits is being shifted away from good-faith editors constantly having to challenge them, and onto those who make drive-by and contentious edits, who may now find themselves arguing the case for why their changes should even appear, let alone remain once already published, as they otherwise would.

There is already plenty of evidence within the project that suggests this is the only way forward. More and more experienced editors are inserting FAQ sections in the discussion pages of articles to save themselves fro! m consta ntly dealing with the same questions and disputes, and at the top of the dispute resolution ladder, the Arbitration Committee has a large list of sanctions for various articles and topics, which can be applied to editors who don’t follow the rules.

But some might argue it’s much too little, much too late. Wikipedia has regrettably served as an anonymous platform to libel people, one which appealed to Johann Hari when he used it to describe people he didn’t like as alcoholics, anti-Semites, or homophobes.

Pending changes would not only have made it much more difficult for such edits to get through, but might even have diminished the incentive to make them in the first place if they didn’t appear immediately after submission.

The fact that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone is arguably both the site’s best and worst aspect: without it, it wouldn’t be what it is. But with September 2012 seeing the lowest monthly level of new editors since September 2005, a laissez-faire attitude to content is no longer sustainable. Sharing knowledge is a worthy and appealing undertaking; baby-sitting its potentially fleeting presence in a digital no-man’s land, not so much.

“Say you want to host a channel about blogging, you can schedule live conversations at any time and moderate who speaks. If you connect the tool to Facebook and Twitter, the site automatically shares the time of the chat to Facebook friends and Twitter followers.”

Investors include Scott Banister, Will Smith, True Ventures, and Triple Point Ventures.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has said that one way she intends to restock the company with talented engineers is through small acquisitions. These transactions are often called aqui-hires.

They are a nice way for a failed company to end.

Here’s the blog post from OnTheAir, announcing the news:

We are excited to share some big news: OnTheAir has been acquired by Yahoo!.

When we started OnTheAir, we had dreams of building a company that made a difference in the daily lives of millions. Our pursuit was challenging: We put in late nights together. We debated intensely. We worked like crazy to build a product we were proud to put our name on.

Despite the challenges, our experience has been a rewarding one. We got to launch multiple products to a wonderful community. We were coached and mentored by some of the brighte! st inves tors and advisors in Technology (see our list below and work with them if you ever get the chance!). Most importantly, we developed deep bonds as a team and learned how to work together as a unit.

While we haven’t yet attained our dream of building a widespread daily use product, we are just as committed to it. And this is why we’re so excited to be joining Yahoo!. When we first met with the team at Yahoo!, it was clear that everybody there is committed to making mobile products the backbone for the world’s daily habits. All in all, it’s a fascinating time to be joining Yahoo!. There’s a tremendous amount of energy in the company. There are big things to be done and great products to be built, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.

We want to conclude this letter with a word of gratitude. Thank you to all of our customers, team members, mentors, advisors, investors, consultants, friends, and family for being a special part of OnTheAir. Building a company is no easy task, and we realize we wouldn’t be anywhere without your support.

ATTENTION U.S. CUSTOMERS – IMPORTANT!We are sorry to announce that due to legal and regulatory pressures, Intrade can no longer allow US residents to participate in our real-money prediction markets.

Unfortunately this means that all US residents must begin the process of closing down their Intrade accounts. We strongly urge you to begin this process immediately:

Step 1: Close out open predictions

You must close out all open predictions before 8:00am GMT (3:00am ET) on December 23, 2012. Instructions on how to close out an open prediction can be found HERE.

If this is not done then by the deadline noted above, Intrade will close out your predictions for you at what we consider to be fair market value as of the daily session close of December 23, 2012.

Fair market value will be determined using current and historical price information, including daily close prices and recent trades. Values will be set at the absolute discretion of Intrade and will not be open for review, discussion or argument – our determination of fair market value is final.

Step 2: Withdraw funds

Please note, no customers will be charged the $4.99 monthly fee due on December 1, 2012.

Members have until December 31, 2012, to withdraw all funds from their account. Instructions on how to request a withdrawal can be found HERE.

To h! elp you receive your funds as quickly and easily as possible, the $20 fee normally charged by Intrade for processing a bank wire withdrawal will be waived. Please be aware however that any fees charged by the sending and receiving bank, plus any intermediary bank the transfer is routed through will NOT be refunded by Intrade.

We understand this announcement may come as a surprise and a disappointment to our US customers, but this in no way signals the end of Intrade in the US. In the near future we’ll announce plans for a new exchange model that will allow legal participation from all jurisdictions – including the US. We believe this new model will further enhance Intrade position as the leading prediction market platform for real time probabilities about future events. We would like to sincerely thank our US customers for their custom, support and loyalty over the years.

For our non-US customers, we will continue to offer real-money prediction markets. In the coming weeks and months we plan to implement a number of improvements to the Intrade website. These include expanding our market categories to include sports, adding more convenient funding options and a new and improved trading interface. We’ll keep you posted on these initiatives as they develop.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at November 26, 2012 20:53:16 UTC———————————–To protect yourself from identity theft never give out your Intrade login or password.

Morgan Stanley’s US Equity Strategy team led by Adam Parker just published their 2013 outlook for the stock market. They’re calling for the S&P 500 to end next year at 1,434.

The massive research note included a lot of interesting information about the stock market including this: just 10 companies are accounting for 88 percent of all of the earnings growth in the S&P 500 this year.

For 2013, the sources of growth are expected to be much more diversified with the top 10 names driving just 34 percent of growth.

Still, the biggest names will play a big role next year. “Notably, Apple, Bank of America, Microsoft, GE, and Google are forecasted to be one-quarter of the entire S&P500’s earnings growth in 2013,” writes Parker.

Facebook says the suit is bogus, and is fighting an appeal in the case.

One key issue in the case is Facebook’s refusal to allow its clicks to be audited by a third party like the IAB, the Media Ratings Council or Ernst & Young.

Speaking privately, the company’s clients and competitors tell us they are aware that Facebook is non-transparent when it came to its advertising business.

None of them believed Facebook was acting improperly. And none sympathized with the suit. One said, “We trust Facebook and know that they are always working to refine their filters and to identify invalid clicks.”

Another added, “I don’t think they’re ripping people off.”

However, they also said that because Facebook is so big it is able to play by its own rules in a way that might not be healthy .

“They don’t let you audit,” said one client. “It’s a little bit suspect. A bit of a conflict of interest. … You have to trust Facebook’s numbers.”

Another added, “They’re not playing by the rules everyone else is playing by. It’s definitely an issue that there’s this 800 pound gorilla out there that isn’t playing by the rules.”

One major issue for advertisers is that they can only observe Facebook’s clicks independently if they send traffic off the site! to thei r own web sites. As most campaigns are designed to send traffic to the advertisers’ Facebook page, those clicks remain inside Facebook – and thus invisible to outside analytics.

“A lot of campaigns are not sending traffic off site so there’s no way to check,” one client told us.

Another said, “If we are driving users to a Facebook page — then we rely on Facebook metrics (impressions, clicks, conversions, engagement …) as the click goes directly to the Facebook page and not through a redirect AND we can’t fire pixels on Facebook pages like we can on external sites.”

Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google’s former click fraud czar who is now vp/strategy at Shape Security, told us that he knows many of the team members at Facebook who are working on click validation. “They are investing heavily in this area,” he says. A third-party audit of clicks, however is a “non-trivial” event at a company, he says. It requires time and resources, and an outside company must come in and perform experiments with the internal engineers. Nonetheless, “they need to take this very seriously,” he says.

Owning a car costs an average of $8,776 annually, according to the American Automobile Association. That is based on 15,000 miles of driving and includes fuel, insurance, maintenance and depreciation.

Car rental companies will rent wheels by the month for as little as $589, according to Orbitz, which amounts to $7,068 per year — not including fuel, which is a major cost.

If you want to skip the bus, but still save on transportation costs, you could consider using a short-term vehicle rental service.

These vehicles are rented by the hour (or sometimes by the minute) and the rental company picks up all the usual costs of car ownership.

Short-term vehicle rental is an emerging trend that is currently only available in select big cities, but it is expanding. Here are the major operators:

Car2Go

This subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, rents tiny Smartcars for 38 cents per minute or $13.99 per hour. You also pay a one-time $35 membership fee.

Renters can book one of the two-seaters online, or use a membership card to open and drive off in any of the blue-and-white painted cars they find parked around town.

Car2go pays for gas and when renters are done using the car, they simply park in any designated space, usually located downtown or in heavily trafficked areas, and walk away.

Car2go currently operates in six North American cities and a dozen European cities.

Zipcar

This company operates like car2Go, except it rents more than 30 different types of vehicles.

Rates vary by location and plan, but in San Francisco, for instance, the occasional driver plan requires a $60 annual fee, $25 application fee and hourly rates of about $8.50.

Zipcar operates in 20 major U.S. cities as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and Austria.

DriveNow

This is a joint venture led by BMW that features the German automaker’s all-electric ActiveE sedan.

Renters pay a one-time membership fee of $39 and, after picking up the car at a DriveNow station, $12 for the first 30 minutes and 32 cents for additional minutes for a one-hour rate of $21.60.

DriveNow is available in four German cities and San Francisco.

Modo

Modo is a car-sharing co-op that requires a $20 initial registration, fee plus $50 per year and $7.50 per hour for rentals.

Renters pre-book vehicles in half-hour increments and pay penalties for late returns, cancellations and no-shows.

Modo rents a variety of vehicles, but only in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hertz on Demand

This service is an hourly offering of the world’s largest car rental company. It requires no annual fees and charges hourly rates ranging from $5 in Boston to $8 in San Antonio.

Renters pick up and drop off vehicles, which include Nissan’s Sentra, as well as Chevy Cruze and Malibu models, at designated Hertz On Demand locations.

Hertz On Demand is in a dozen U.S. cities as well as the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany.

Scoot

This startup charges $10 to join and $5 per month, plus $5 per hour to rent two-wheeled electric scooters, complete with helmets.

The service is available only in San Francisco and environs, and the scooters are only suitable for single passengers traveling at less than highway speed.

Breaking Down the Cost

The average adult spends just under an hour driving daily, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Based on average short-term rates of about $12 hourly, the typical adult driver could spend $4,380 per year on short-term rentals, which is less than half ! the cost of owning a car, while still driving the same amount.

Hourly car renters sacrifice some convenience and still must pay for parking tickets, lost membership cards and other incidentals.

But, for people who live where short-term rentals are available, drive the average amount or less, and don’t need a car at their beck and call, short-term rentals appear to offer an inexpensive way to get around.

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.